casebash

Replying toLeaving beta: Voting on moving to LessWrong.com

casebash8y

Leaving beta: Voting on moving to LessWrong.com

I don't think there is anything stopping you from trying to create a test LW2 account to see if you will be locked out

Replying toLeaving beta: Voting on moving to LessWrong.com

casebash8y

Leaving beta: Voting on moving to LessWrong.com

Have you seen the notifications up the top right? Does that do what you want?

Replying toAn alternative way to browse LessWrong 2.0

casebash8y

An alternative way to browse LessWrong 2.0

How haven't they caught up to 90s-era newsreaders.

Replying toFeedback on LW 2.0

casebash8y

Feedback on LW 2.0

What are the plans for the Wiki? If the plan is to keep it the same, why doesn't Lesser Wrong have a link to it yet?

Replying toFeedback on LW 2.0

casebash8y

Feedback on LW 2.0

I agree that people should not be able to upvote or downvote an article without having clicked through to it.

I also find the comments hard to parse because the separation is less explicit than on either Reddit or here.

Replying toLW 2.0 Open Beta starts 9/20

casebash8y

LW 2.0 Open Beta starts 9/20

It works now.

Replying toLW 2.0 Open Beta starts 9/20

casebash8y

LW 2.0 Open Beta starts 9/20

It does not seem to be working.

Replying toLW 2.0 Strategic Overview

casebash8y

LW 2.0 Strategic Overview

Are there many communities that do that apart from meta-filter?

Replying toLW 2.0 Strategic Overview

casebash8y

LW 2.0 Strategic Overview

Firstly, well done on all your hard work! I'm very excited to see how this will work out.

Secondly, I know that this might be best after the vote, but don't forget to take advantage of community support.

I'm sure that if you set up a Kickstarter or similar, that people would donate to it, now that you've proven your ability to deliver.

I also believe that, given how many programmers we have here, many people will want to make contributions to the codebase. My understanding was that this wasn't really happening before: a) Because the old code base was extremely difficult to get up and running/messy b) Because it wasn't clear who to talk to if you wanted to know if your changes were likely to be approved if you made them.

It looks like a) has been solved, if you also improve b), then I expect a bunch of people will want to contribute.

Replying toMap and territory: Natural structures

casebash9y

Map and territory: Natural structures

It's just an example.

Map and territory: Natural structures

casebash

This will be a very short post which simply defines one term which I find useful when discussing the map and the territory.

I find it very useful to have a term that helps clarify that the map is not completely arbitrary and that there are things in the territory that are natural candidates for appearing in the map. For example, for the Ship of Thesus, one natural candidate is the pure, original, unmodified ship; another are the fixed percentages (ie. 50% original); another would be a continuity based measure. If you are asked to create a definition of what counts as the Ship of Thesus, these are some of the first ideas... (read 174 more words →)

90% of problems are recommendation and adaption problems

casebash

Want to improve your memory? Start a business? Fix your dating life?

The chances are that out of the thousands upon thousands of books and blogs out there on each of these topics there are already several that will tell you all that you need. I'm not saying that this will immediately solve your problem - you will still need to put in the hard yards of experiment and practise - just that lack of knowledge will no longer be the limiting factor.

This suggests if we want to be winning at life (as any good rationalist should), what is most important isn't creating brilliant and completely unprecedented approaches to solve these problems, but... (read 253 more words →)

Self-conscious ideology

casebash

Operating outside of ideology is extremely hard, if not impossible. Even groups that see themselves as non-ideological, still seem to end up operating within an ideology of some sort.

Take for example Less Wrong. It seems to operate within a few assumptions:

That studying rationality will provide use with a greater understanding of the world.
That studying rationality will improve you as a person.
That science is one of our most important tools for understanding the world.

...

These assumptions are also subject to some criticisms. Here's one criticism for each of the previous points:

But will it or are we dealing with problems that are simply beyond our ability to understand (see epistemic learned helplessness)? Do we really understand

... (read 171 more words →)

On Arrogance

casebash

Arrogance is an interesting topic.

Let's imagine we have two people who are having a conversation. One of them is an professor in quantum mechanics and the other person is an enthusiast who has read a few popular science articles online.

The professor always gives his honest opinion, but in an extremely blunt manner, not holding anything back and not making any attempts to phrase it politely. That is, the professor does not merely tell the enthusiast that they are wrong, but also provides his honest assessment that the enthusiast does possess even a basic understanding of the core concepts of quantum mechanics.

The enthusiast is polite throughout, even when subject to this criticism. They respond

casebash

There seems to actually be real momentum behind this attempt as reviving Less Wrong. One of the oldest issues on LW has been the lack of content. For this reason, I thought that it might be worthwhile opening a thread where people can suggest how we can expand the scope of what people write about in order for us to have sufficient content.

Does anyone have any ideas about which areas of rationality are underexplored? Please only list one area per comment.

Debating concepts - What is the comparative?

casebash

In order to get a solid handle on a proposal, it isn't enough to just know what the world will look like if you adopt the proposal. It is also very important to know what the current situation or counter-model is, otherwise the proposal may provide less of a benefit than expected. Before I begin, I'll note that this article is about the comparative, I'll write another article for being comparative later, though probably under the name being responsive since this will be less confusing.

One of the best ways to think about what it means to be comparative is that you want to indicate what the two worlds will look like. For example, conscription... (read 423 more words →)

Terminology is important

casebash

As rationalists, we like to focus on substance over style. This is a good habit; unfortunately, most of the public will swallow extremely poor reasoning if it is expressed sufficiently confidently and fluently. However, style is also important when it comes to popularising an idea, even if it is within our own community.

In order for terminology to be useful, a few conditions need to be met:

Firstly, the term needs to either be more nuanced or more concise than explaining the same concept in ordinary language. I tend to see it as a bad thing when terms are created just to signal that a person is a member of the in-group.
Secondly, the speaker

... (read 395 more words →)

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Yvain's most important articles

What subjects are important to rationality, but not covered in Less Wrong?

Experiments 1: Learning trivia

Which areas of rationality are underexplored? - Discussion Thread

casebash

Map and territory: Natural structures

90% of problems are recommendation and adaption problems

Red Teaming Climate Change Research - Should someone be red-teaming Rationality/EA too?

Self-conscious ideology

‘Crucial Considerations and Wise Philanthropy’, by Nick Bostrom

On Arrogance

Unspeakable conversations

casebash

Yvain's most important articles

What subjects are important to rationality, but not covered in Less Wrong?

Experiments 1: Learning trivia

Which areas of rationality are underexplored? - Discussion Thread

casebash

Map and territory: Natural structures

90% of problems are recommendation and adaption problems

Red Teaming Climate Change Research - Should someone be red-teaming Rationality/EA too?

Self-conscious ideology

‘Crucial Considerations and Wise Philanthropy’, by Nick Bostrom

On Arrogance

Unspeakable conversations